Every accountant that gets successful results understands that the power is in the numbers. This means that at every stage of your marketing you need to measure and monitor the numbers to see whether your website and other marketing activities are performing successfully.
The easiest way to do this is by installing something called Google Analytics. And best of all, it is a free tool. This blog will explain Google Analytics for accountants and bookkeepers.
After signing up for Google Analytics, the first thing you need to do is install a Google Analytics Tracking Code into your website. As soon as you have done this (or got your web designer to do this for you) you can start tracking your website performance.
This is what the code will look like (but will be unique to your website):
The Google Analytics Dashboard
Within the Google Analytics dashboard you will be able to see how many website visitors you have, where they come from, how long they stay on your website and how many pages your website visitors actually browse through.
All of this data enables you to see how effective your marketing is, and how effective your website is at guiding and nurturing your prospects to become clients.
Google Analytics offers so much data that sometimes it is easy to get lost and can be overwhelming. This article is written to explain the basics of how to use it so that you understand the numbers, and see what and what is not, working in your marketing.
Best Practices When Using Google Analytics
Compare Specific Dates
Comparing dates on your Google Analytics dashboard allows you to check your website traffic and its data against a previous period.
Examples of this could include:
- This week versus last week
- This month versus last month
- The past 90 days versus the same 90-day period 1 year ago
Here is an example of comparing two 90 day periods to see if there are any trends.
The power of comparing dates comes when you match it up against activity that you are doing in your marketing.
Audience Overview
The first thing you see when you log into your Google Analytics account will be your website traffic audience overview.
This will give you an overarching view of the following metrics:
Total Number of Sessions – the aim of your number of sessions is to have an increase in sessions (green) and not a decrease (red). In the example below you can see that the number of sessions has increase to 2,538 from 2,511 . An increase of 1.08%. Although it looks like a small increase, this increase of 1% on a monthly basis will have a compound effect.
Total Number of Users – this is the number of unique visitors that have come to your website. Unlike the above metric (which is number of times people have visited your website) the number of users metric enables you to see how many people you are attracting. Again, you are always looking to increase this metric.
Total Number of Page Views – This metric does what it says on the tin. Please note repeated views of a single page are counted.
Pages/Sessions – Is the average number of pages viewed during a session. Repeated views of a single page are counted. As you can see in the screen grab below, this example gets an average of 4.5 page views per visit.
Average Session Duration – This is how long your website visitors spend on the website each time they visit it. The time they spend will depend on which pages you have on your website and the effectiveness of the content.
Bounce Rate – The percentage of single-page sessions in which there was no interaction with the page. A bounced session has a duration of 0 seconds. The aim here is to have the lowest bounce rate possible. You do not want people going to your website and bouncing off immediately.
% of New Sessions – This is an estimate of the number of first time visits to your website. Again, you will always be wanting to grow your audience.
The overall aim is an increase in sessions, users (repeat and new), increase in pages visited and page views and an increase in session duration. The only metric you want to reduce at any time is your bounce rate.
Acquisition
There are a number of reporting sections in your Acquisition details. This section tells you where your visitors originated from, such as search engines, social media networks or website referrals.
Let’s look deeper into some of the key metrics you can analyse in your firm:
Organic Search
This is the number of visitors that have found you through searching online using key words. As you can see this website has had over 14,000 people organically search for their website and then visit it
Direct
This is when your visitor types in your website URL and goes directly to your website.
Social
This is when a visitor has clicked on a social media update (a link from Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and gone through to your website. This is a good metric when you are on multiple social media sites to analyse their effectiveness.
As you can see above, Facebook has the most clicks. This number is significantly larger than the other platforms because we have found paid Facebook Marketing (with boosted updates and advertising) to be highly effective for driving traffic to the above website.
Referral
This is when a visitor has arrived at your website through another website. For example, you may be featured in an online magazine and a visitor has clicked through from there. Or from your Amazon link or your local Chamber Of Commerce website.
Device
Using Google Analytics you can see which device visitors are using to visit your website. The options are Desktop, Tablet or from a Mobile Phone.
Understanding which devices are being used enables you to maximise the user experience for your website visitors.
In this screen grab to your left you can see that most of the website’s visitors come from a mobile phone. A whopping 52% in fact. The next most popular device is a Desktop and the least popular is a Tablet.
In the screen grab to your right (which is from our website TwentyTwo.Agency you can see that 56.3% of our website visitors use a desktop computer to visit our website. Hardly any use a tablet and 38% use a mobile smart phone. This insight is very important for us as an agency, as it enables us to understand our clients better. It is clear that Accountants and professional service firms still love to use a Desktop Computer.
In this screen grab to your left you can see that most of the website’s visitors come from a mobile phone. A whopping 52% in fact. The next most popular device is a Desktop and the least popular is a Tablet.
Most Visited Pages
Understanding which pages your website visitor is drawn to is crucial to helping your website success, and also crucial to understand what information your website visitor is looking for.
The top two most visited pages are often the Home page and About Us page on any website. The aim is to nurture your website visitor through their buyer’s journey and get them to sign up for your free eBook, webinar or to jump on a call with you.
Reports
Keep in mind that there is much power in knowing your numbers. If you have had someone design your website and it is missing Google Analytics then you need to get it inserted so you can start to monitor its effectiveness.
Do you even know how many people visit your website on a monthly basis? Do you know how they find your website? Do you know if they bounce off straight away?
These numbers will help you maximise the effectiveness of your marketing activity and your website. If you would like us to analyse your Google Analytics for free and report back to you on what is working and what is not then please click here to contact us. There is profit to be had when you know your numbers.
To download our ebook and get a list of 100 marketing ideas for your accounting practice click here for the 100 Ways To Market Your Accounting Firm
What do we do at TwentyTwo?
At TwentyTwo Agency we specialise in helping you create a strategy, attract ideal prospects, convert them into clients and get remembered and referred. Our specialities include content marketing, blog writing, email newsletter management and social media management. We are a content marketing and digital experience agency for accounting firms. We ensure you get remembered, recommended and referred.
To find out if we can help you, reach out to our team by emailing [email protected]
